p. 14 - “If covering our bodies with clothes represents a cultural step forward, there is no guarantee that in the future masks will not be taken equally for granted. Even now they are often used in important ceremonies and festivals. I do not quite know how to put it, but I wonder if a mask, being universal, enhances our relations with others more than does the naked face.”
p. 19 - “according to one theory a mask is apparently the expression of an extremely metaphysical aspiration to give oneself a kind of transcendental disguise, for the mask is not simply something compensatory”
p. 33 - “mine must be a mask that moved”
p. 45 - “the mask’s objective was to obliterate the base”
p. 70 - “the ordinary mask… attempts escape in a positive direction. I could give the mask any expression I wanted, but it would still be an empty container, a reflection in a mirror, transfigurable according to the person peering in.”
p. 76 - “In the case of executioners, strolling flute players, religious judges, primitive medicine men, priests of secret societies, and sneak thieves, a disguising mask was indispensable. It had not only the negative aim of concealing the man’s face, but also the positive objective of cutting off the connection between face and heart by concealing the expression, thus liberating him from ordinary, earthly ties. Take a more common example: disguise is part of the sychology of the dandy, who wants to wear his sunglasses even though there is no glare. But released from any mental restraint, he can be utterly free and accordingly infinitely cruel.”
p. 77 - “isn’t the mask something required mainly by the victim and the disguise, on the contrary, by the assailant?"
pp. 93–94 - “I was dazzled perhaps by the double aspect of the mask—was it the negation of my real face or actually a new face?”
p. 94 - “In mathematics there are ‘imaginary numbers,’ strange numbers which, when squared, become minus. They have points of similarly with masks, for putting one mask over another would be the same as nog putting on any at all.”
p. 106 - “my mask was more than anything else a challenge to the prejudice surrounding the face”
p. 117 - “Since I had put a mask over my face, I needed one that would fit my heart.”
p. 148 - “escaping from loneliness by realizing that everyone is equally guilty is by far the most effective way of settling things”
p. 149 - “Isn’t it true that the liabilities of an incomplete person—not being able, without the mask, to sing, to exchange blows with an enemy, to be a lecher, to dream—have become a common subject between me and others, and I alone am not guilty?”
p. 152 - “The real face definitely could not get drunk the way the mask did.”
p. 155 - “Though the mask’s alibi was flawless, and the freedom it promised inexhaustible, I wondered if it were not ignoble to be satisfied with the freedom of behaving covetously; I was disoriented, like a penniless man who has suddenly acquired a great some of money. . . . Far from being satisfied, my mask opened the roadway wide, like the mouth of a frog fish gloatingly awaiting the arrival of bait.”
p. 158 - “An arsonist is an eccentric by definition. But since the mask was a mask and not bound by a ‘right’ way of doing things, if the expenditure of freedom itself were guaranteed, there was no need to bring normality or abnormality into the question.”
pp. 161–162 - “In the first place, the mask was itself a serious act of violence against the custom of the world. Whether arson and murder would be more destructive than a mask could not be answered with pure common sense. To put it succinctly, it would be best to begin mass production of an elaborate mask, like the one used for myself, and presuppose a public opinion that in time would be favorable. In all likelihood, masks would attain fantastic popularity, my factory would grow larger and larger, and even working full time it would be unable to meet the demand. . . . I wonder whether mankind could stand such an orgy of novelty, whether it would dioscover promise in such a weightless state, whether it would be able to evolve new customs."
p. 163 - “The mask does not deceive and is not deceived. How about putting on a new mask, turning over a new leaf, and starting another life? On these days of masks, we can put on a new look unconcerned with yesterday or tomorrow.”
p. 167 - “Does the nation consider the mask something evil and subversive? I wonder whether the nation itself is not an enormous mask intolerant of the rivalry of individual masks. Then the most harmless thing in the word must be an anarchist. . . .”
p. 205 - “And just as the existence of the barrier was merely a promise rather than a reality, I who had taken off the mask found my existence also shallow and illusory. And I thought of the mask—of the world that I touched upon through the mask—as having a far greater reality.”
p. 214 - “my real face was merely an incomplete mask”
p. 223 - “I reflected that love strips the mask from each of us, and we must endeavor for those we love to put the mask on so that it can be taken off again. For if there is no mask to start with, there is no pleasure in removing it, is there? . . . It is meaningful to put a mask on, precisely because one makes others realize it is a mask. . . . After all, it was not that the mask was bad, but that you were too unaware of how to treat it.”
p. 236 - “The mask might not be absolutely right, but it was not completely wrong.”
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